Breaking news out of South Bend. Notre Dame is going with Ian Book this week at Wake Forest. It wouldn’t be a Brian Kelly season without a little drama at the quarterback position. Time is a flat circle and Ian Book is QB1.
Wimbush is arguably Notre Dame’s best runner and has the best arm strength on the team, but the offense has been in quick sand all year because of his inability to get the short and intermediate passing game going do to a lack of accuracy. Wimbush really isn’t even that good at the read-option plays either.
It’s clear that ND would love to run more RPOs and have tried to force it into the playbook, but Wimbush consistently makes the wrong read or when he makes the correct read to throw the ball out the perimeter the pass in inaccurate and the play goes nowhere. Hence Chris Finke had 5 catches for a grand total of 6 yards vs Vanderbilt last week.
The days of Wimbush improvising and using his legs to pick up a 3and18 like he did against Michigan are gone, but the hope is that now Notre Dame will have a competent passing game so you don’t end up in as many 3-and-forevers. Book is a better runner than people give him credit for, which of course is code for “He’s a white guy”. He’ll pull the ball down when appropriate and the Irish will stay ahead of the sticks as a result.
Notre Dame is 3-0, but the offense has been held to 24 points or less in all three games. The coaching staff gave Wimbush a quarter of the season to get it going and it just never really came together. Now they turn to Ian Book against Wake Forest where he’ll hopefully lead the Irish to 4-0 before the meat of their schedule hits…Stanford and then in Blacksburg vs Virginia Tech. Full speed ahead for the uNDefeated Irish. All Gas, No Brakes, Ian Book. Lets go
